Condition:
Released: Elektra EKS 75046
Record condition: NM (looks basically new)
Made in: CANADA 1972
Jacket Sleeve: EX gatefold with original insert sleeve some ringwear
Tracks and Info:
1. Day and Night
2. Hey Lawdy Lawdy
3. I'll Believe in You
4. Put Myself to Sleep
5. Eventually Even You Even Me
6. Coming Apart
7. It's My Life
8. Beach Song
9. Buck Duckdog Memorial Jam
10. Last Dance
More than their two previous albums , Shredder captured some of the freewheeling energy of the Wackers, a band that flew in the face of early-'70s trends by taking their inspiration from the concise pop-rock of the British Invasion era. Ironically, however, it wasn't even intended to be a Wackers album when it was first conceived. Perhaps even more ironically, a subsequent attempt to capture the actual Wackers live sound on LP came to naught, helping lead to the demise of the band in 1973.
Although the Wackers had formed in Northern California, they moved to Montreal after recording most of their second album, 1972's Hot Wacks, in the city, returning to play an enthusiastically received two-month residency at the Mustache club. Shredder started out not as a Wackers album, but as a side project for Bob Segarini and Randy Bishop, who had done much of the writing and singing on the first two Wackers LPs.
After its release, Shredder got some positive feedback in Rolling Stone, where reviewer Ben Edmonds observed, "With rock'n'roll commanding so much of the action on Shredder ('Hey Lawdy Lawdy,' 'It's My Life'), even their acoustic material packs a punch, and may in fact provide the album's most enjoyable moments. These are rock'n'roll ballads, not whimperings from some Marin County sickbed...On 'Last Dance' you can almost envision Ray Davies and David Bowie in starchy prom tuxedos, waltzing across the floor for the final time. Randy Bishop's vocal is overly affected, but works perfectly in context. The song is a caricature, its features consciously distorted for emphasis and effect. At the heart of the Wacker ethic is an unmovable commitment to fun, even should it take the form of mild self-parody."
"I think our timing was five years too early, or five years too late," Segarini remarks when asked why the Wackers never made a big commercial splash, despite gaining fans among some of the day's leading rock critics, and despite making music with a very commercial pop-rock approach. "I think the Wackers albums are full of hits. But it's really not important. It wasn't even important at the time. I don't remember ever hearing anybody say, we don't have a #1 record, so we suck. We were always working, we always saw full houses, we always were in the studio, pretty much. It felt good to us. Had Elektra understood what the Wackers were, I think we would have broken ten times bigger than the Raspberries ever did. But they didn't."
|
Shopping Cart
